Movie Nation

A “pre COVID mob scene” per the theater manager of this Regal Cinemas.

You’ve got to be brave when you include “special needs” characters in your movie. There are sensibilities, issues of compassion, prejudice in a “pre-judging” sense and even nomenclature that can get you into trouble.

I hesitate to even mention movies that might encompass that term, because characterization is everything these days. “Rain Man” and “Benny & Joon” were born before “on the spectrum” gave filmmakers and actors and those reviewing their works wriggle room.

The Oscar-winning “CODA” wasn’t about mental disabilities, but the deaf parents depicted in that had “special needs,” at least in the eyes of their co-dependent daughter, whom they lean on to make their lives work.

It’s hard to consider a “Poppy” or a “Champions,” to name two titles from this still-new year, without implied judgement in how they’re depicting and “mainstreaming” characters in their fictional stories, and whether it is “realistic” or responsible to simplistically insist — as “feel good movies” do — that they should be.

“Wildflower” does a fine job of walking that tightrope. “Inspired by a true story,” screenwriter Jana Savage and director Matt Smuckler aren’t shy about the pitfalls and perils associated with two adults of childishly-diminished capacities marrying and having a baby that the most sensible members of both their families see as a burden they’re all going to have to share, because the parents aren’t going to be all that parental.

“Wildflower” is closer to “CODA” and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” than “Benny & Joon,” as there are responsible adults who shrug off the idea of Sharon (newcomer Samantha Hyde) and Derek (Dash Mihok) — one with a genetic condition since birth, the other a survivor of a brain injury at 12 — “dating.” And then there’s everybody else.

A “running gag,” if you can call it that, is this person or that one blurting out, at the appropriate time, “I KNEW something like this would happen!”

The film opens with teenaged Bea (Kiernan Shipka of “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”) being gurneyed into the emergency room. She’s had an accident. She’s in a coma. Her family gathers, her parents, the permissive but always-concerned Jewish grandmother (Jean Smart, terrific) and the chain-smoking and unfiltered Vegas granny (Jacki Weaver at her Jackiest) and Bea’s practical aunt (Alexandra Daddario) and doting uncle (Reid Scott).

They remember the tortured path that brought them to this point, with every “I KNEW something like this would happen” along the way. The most under-booked social worker (Erika Alexander) in history questions them all, even Bea’s boyfriend (Charlie Plummer) and her bestie (Kannon Omachi). Flashbacks, narrated by Bea, tell the long story of how she got to that fateful night.

It’s a dramedy, so we’re going to be treated to sweet moments, laugh-out-loud blunders, “inappropriate” talk and manners and some genuine cringes all through the years.

What emerges is a childhood of terrible decision-making by “adults” who were not “21 INSIDE” when they met and fell in love. They haven’t matured into parents who can put their daughter’s needs ahead of their impulses and can’t focus on simple things like shopping, cooking and feeding themselves, dealing with money or helping their child settle into school on a path that will lead to her success.

If the house is a mess, it’s because little Bea (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) hasn’t gotten around to cleaning it. If Mom isn’t ready for work, it’s because Bea hasn’t made her get dressed and led her to the bus stop.

“Did you brush your teeth?”

If Dad’s impatient with driving lessons for her “in case something bad happens,” it might be because he’s not a good teacher. And that he’s doing this when Bea is TEN.

The viewer might be amused or appalled at all this. Bea, who prefers that name because her folks named her “Bambi,” just rolls with it, a sardonic commenter on her life and hard times, her massive responsibilities and the way all the petty problems of high school are over-shadowed by this life-limiting burden she carries, mostly without telling anyone.

I like the way the script introduces the “R-word,” which little Bea hears someone call her mother at school.

“Your mom’s not retarded,” her Dad insists. “Are you?” his kid wants to know?

Dad, like his brassy, blowsy mother, is into Jesus. And he likes that term “special.” That’s why he declines Mom’s “disability” payments at one point.

Bea grew up just as cluelessly inconsiderate of how dangerous the world can be as her caregivers. Of course she jumps in the aunt’s pool. Swimming? Who learned how to do that?

You can see why Bea chooses to give up a beloved dog. Even at 10, she knows “I can’t take care of him AND my Mom.”

That could easily have been a heartbreaking moment in a movie that shies away from those. A touching scene or two in the third act is all the emotion “Wildflower” really allows. The script, to a fault, leans more on the high school smart-ass eschewing “normal” because that’s what life has denied her, but grabbing the first “normal” thing — a boyfriend — that comes along, just to see what it’s like.

There’s a distance in the writing and in Shipka’s performance that hampers the film and robs it of some of the heart that should have been its birthright. Incessant voice-over narration, the lazy screenwriter’s crutch, is a big part of that.

So’s the tone. This is a serious subject with some seriously silly things to present, observe and laugh out loud about. The movie feels like any other sensitive, smarter-than-seventeen but with BIG problems high school comedy, with “Charlie Bartlett” leaping to mind more than once.

Gullible Mom can’t even make change, so sure she’ll buy us beer and hard seltzer. Dad’s short attention span and self-absorption mean there’s no high school track meet he won’t skip to go something that’s “fun” to him.

Misgivings aside, I did enjoy the characters, laugh a lot at the right moments and wince at the appropriate times. Even when it strays away from its core messaging, “Wildflower” never steps on a mine. And when you’re working your way through a minefield, you call that a win every time.

Rating:  R for some language, teen drinking and a sexual reference Cast: Kiernan Shipka, Dash Mihok, Jacki Weaver, Charlie Plummer, Alexandra Daddario, Reid Scott, Erika Alexander, Samantha Hyde, Brad Garrett and Jean Smart. Credits: Directed by Matt Smuckler, scripted by Jana Savage. A Momentum/eOne release.

Running time: 1:46

Willem Dafoe leads us into madness as a sort of performance art in “Inside,” a simple, austere thriller with a highly-polished sheen.

A man, trapped by his greed and artistic/class resentment and passion for that one missing “self portrait” by Schiele, must cope with his circumstances and struggle with his fate in an apartment that was designed to be a self-contained fortress, one that easily becomes his “cage.”

Our unnamed protagonist narrates an anecdote from his youth, about a class assignment to name the “three things you would save” if your house caught on fire. He failed to mention his family or his cat, but made sure to save his sketchbook.

“Art,” he intones, “is for keeps.“

He’s a 50ish struggling artist who turned to art theft at some point. But his latest elaborate heist goes wrong when the unseen tech whiz on his team — somebody else helicoptered onto a penthouse roof — underestimates the electronic security of this luxury flat owned by some sort of oligarch from Kazakhstan. The “inside man” is trapped “Inside,” with a radio-crackled “You’re on your own” the only sign-off from outside.

The claxon from the alarm is deafening. The Medieval church-door he entered through is sealed, and backed by an impenetrable steel sheet. The windows won’t break. The skylight is on a ceiling vaulted so high as to be unreachable.

When he finally works the problem and smashes the alarm, his fate appears to be sealed.

But there’s no “armed response” to this home invasion. No cops, no security from downstairs, no call to the owner, wherever he is, that his alarm was tripped. The CCTV cameras the owner’s entertainment center accesses show only indifference from the front desk guard, the maid eating her lunch in a stairwell, the rich swells going to and fro in the busy lobby.

Our thief is trapped in a spacious flat with a lot of art, much of it flattering the owner. The water to the sinks and such is turned off. The smart fridge works, and alerts him that “supplies are low,” and plays “La Macarena” if he leaves the door open too long.

Water will be an issue long before food is.

Even if he had something to cook, the stove apparently doesn’t work. The wiring, which he has ripped up in efforts to silence the alarm and/or open the door, has very selectively shut off to this or that.

The TV reception is staticky and useless, save for the CCTV feed.

Finding the owner’s Pritzer prize explains the construction. But how in the hell is this thief supposed to get out of there when even security or the police don’t show up after he’s triggered and trashed the alarms?

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Such a clever title must herald great things from “King” Keanu. That’s how he’s being pitched in the latest ads. “The King” is coming March 24.

This should be fun mayhem and infliction of grievous bodily harm.

Here’s the one.

The sci-fi thriller “65” is a “Twilight Zone” episode that over-explains its set-up and surrenders its punch line, a simple quest narrative that lacks thrills and never makes us invest in it and the first serious miscalculation Adam Driver’s made since taking a shot at playing the villainous Kylo Ren.

Decent effects, next-gen CGI dinosaurs, interesting “ticking clock” thrown into the narrative by the title. But it never quite grabs you in the most fundamental way.

We’re meant to see the crashed, hopelessly lost and suicidal alien pilot (Driver) who left his family — sickly daughter included — for this latest years-long “exploratory mission,” find purpose as he resolves to save a little girl (Arianna Greenblatt) the only survivor among his passengers, and get her off prehistoric Earth before something eats her.

Driver’s a fine actor who never feels committed to the role, merely competent in it. Perhaps he had a feeling of just how little there is to the movie. With Netflix serving up Oscar bait, or at least challenging parts — EVERYbody watched “White Noise” after that Ohio train derailment — Driver’s cursed with knowing the difference between good scripts and simply high-paying ones.

“65” gives away its best gimmick in the trailer and starts with a tedious back-story prologue that FURTHER dispels any sense of mystery. It tumbles into its trek from crashed space ship through the swampy, dino-gator-filled valley and up the mountain where a somewhat intact shuttle craft lies in other wreckage.

The pilot and the passenger don’t speak the same language. The script limits the sort of tech that survived the landing to a gun, marble-sized grenades, the distress signal communicator and a nav-gadget with projector qualities so that the pilot can watch holograms of his own child.

I’d quote good dialogue but there isn’t any. The fights and actions, aided by judicious use of sudden LOUD sound effects, are competently-handled and generic in the extreme in their choices of perils.

Quicksand? Really?

“65” is “After Earth” with little that would pass for humor and no swagger. The limited thrills and Driver’s bland by-the-book approach make this play like the extremely-padded-with-filler “Twilight Zone” episode it was begging to be.

Rating: PG-13 for intense sci-fi action and peril, and brief bloody images

Cast: Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Nika King and Chloe Coleman.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. A Sony/Columbia release.

Running time: 1:33

Coming of age, growing up with “special” parents. As in “special needs,” people who require their daughter’s help getting through the day.

There’s a hint of “CODA” in the set up here. Let’s hope the execution is up to snuff.

The cast of this Toronto Film Fest competitor includes Kiernan Shipka, Charlie Plummer, Alexandra Daddario, Brad Garrett, Reid Scott, Jacki Weaver and Jean Smart.

Impressive.

It opens Friday.

South African sex comedies are rare on these cinematic shores. But when you travel “Around the world with Netflix,” you never know what you’ll stumble into.

“Do Your Worst” is a laugher about a struggling single actress making bad decisions into her 40s and the bestie who resents her for that one role that made her famous. It re-pairs two of the stars of the South African TV series “Still Breathing,” Shannon Esra and Kate Liquorish, who click as a comic duo in a rom-com/sex-com of the “Close but no cigar” variety.

It begins with David Attenborough imitator voicing over a woman in Neanderthal makeup barking at her director about a busted take. Our heroine, seen in her natural environment, is what anthropologists would call “a hot mess.” And our story, we are told, takes place in Johannesburg, “an imperfect city — unlovable — but lovely in its own way.”

Sondra (Esra) and Carla (Liquorish) are each-other’s “ride-or-die,” the same age, sharing the same short temper. But one’s still having to audition for commercials, even though she was “famous” for a show twenty years before. She’s never taken a steady job, lives in her parents’ former house, which they let her stay in when they moved to more lush digs, and is unmarried.

Carla lives vicariously through her, seeing as how Sondra “stole” the role that Carla was up for, which would have changed her life. Carla insists on blow-by-blow accounts of her friend’s sex life with “f— boys,” guys given to sending her you-know-what pics.

Descriptions of this or that bloke’s “junk” uses actors and props for comparison — “Danny DeVito with marbles? Chris Hemsworth with boulders? Tom Cruise with GRAPES!”

Sondra knows things aren’t working, but Carla never tires of bucking her up before auditions, and reminding her of how this or that not-quite-right relationship isn’t going to work out.

Then judgmental Mum (Dorothy Ann Gould) and silent Dad show up to announce that they’ve lost most of their retirement savings to a con-artist relative. They’re going to need the house back. It’s time for Sondra to grow up and “get married,” because what else is she qualified to do?

Let down by her latest “boy” on her 40th, drunk enough to kiss Carla’s husband (Rea Rangaka) when she isn’t looking, about to be homeless, is that “historical reenactment” role for the BBC the thing that’ll turn it around, or just another milepost on her path to utter humiliation?

The silliest waste of time screenwriters and directors are hooked on doing these days is deciding their stories need to be broken into “chapters,” which they give cute names.

“Part 1: Sondra’s Worst Day…Part 4: Definitely really Sondra’s Very Worst Day,” and so on.

Stop it.

The funniest scenes here are of Sondra doing her “difficult” on the set shtick, facing every fresh career degradation with a twitch and bottled up fury, which she might unleash when she gets back to the home she’s about to lose.

There’s a “Brazilian” scene with her beauty-parlor-manager sister (Sharon Spiegel Wagner) that’s got a hilarious pay-off, one referenced repeatedly through the rest of the movie.

Wayne Van Rooyen plays the sensitive contractor hired to fix up the bathroom before the house can be rented out, a chivalrous chap eager to help a screen star (in his mind, anyway) in distress.

Of course we can see where this is heading. The trouble is, not enough that’s amusing happens along the way. Tired bits with cellphone mix-ups and further evidence of how Sondra is just “the worst” don’t deliver that celebratory cigar, much less light it.

But Esra and Liquorish are balls-out in some of their scenes together. They always click, and are at their funniest when they’re fighting, indulging and humiliating each other.

More of that, please.

Rating: TV-MA, sexual content, profanity

Cast: Shannon Esra, Kate Liquorish, Wayne Van Rooyen, Rea Rangaka and Dorothy Ann Gould

Credits: Directed by Samantha Nell, scripted by Zoë Laban. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:31

“Moving On” is an amusingly edgy geriatric comedy that provides that late career comic duo Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin with their best star vehicle since “Nine to Five.”

The laughs are droll, and unlike the strained “Grace & Frankie” and lumbering “80 for Brady,” the effort doesn’t show. They’re just two graceful pros, effortlessly playing to their strengths and put through their paces by a writer director (Paul Weitz), who gives them a vehicle worthy of their reputations and talent.

Claire (Fonda) is an 80ish Ohioan who leaves behind her beloved corgi (Dashiell), less-beloved daughter and grandkids to travel to a California funeral. One of her best friends from college has died.

She waits for her moment before the service to pass her condolences on to Joyce’s widowed husband, Howard (Malcolm McDowell). She looks him square in the eye, not a trace of pity in her.

“I’m going to kill you,” she says. “Now that she’s gone, now that it won’t hurt her…this weekend” will be his last, she vows.

Howard is a little rattled, but plainly he knows something we don’t. He has no trouble collecting himself for the eulogy he begins to deliver.

That’s when blowsy, out-of-effs-to-give Evelyn (Tomlin) strolls in and interrupts. She was Joyce’s college roommate, a concert cellist, a bit of a loner, and not all that interested in reconnecting with Claire after the service. A lift? No thanks, I ‘ll take the bus.

“I’m gonna KILL the bastard” leaves Evelyn unmoved. “I’m gonna buy a gun and I’m gonna take it to the wake!”

“Sure, Scarface. Sounds like fun.”

The dynamic is established. Evelyn knew Claire way back. She’s all talk and no follow-through. And Claire? She’s so out of touch with Evelyn she has no notion of her life since college, or that she’ll actually help her accomplish for this rash, violent act.

It’s a tribute to these two, wholly comfortable with each other’s timing and rhythms, that they make this nasty proposition funny — the committed but unreliable killer, the cynical, snarky, half-disinterested “old friend.”

And it’s a tribute to Weitz (“Grandma,” “About a Boy,””Admission,” “Little Fockers”) that this perfectly cast script keeps its secrets, keeps things moving along and keeps us interested with every new revelation and character addition along the way.

McDowell makes a grand straight-man in all of this, a widower with a point of view whose mourning and tolerance of Claire could very well be masking something else. That’s a nicely-turned-out character arc, and well-played.

Richard Roundtree is at his most courtly and chivalrous as one of Claire’s exes. And young Marcel Nahapetian makes a mark as the grandson of one of Evelyn’s neighbors in assisted living, a neglected kid whom she sees even if his parents and grandfather do not.

“My grandson?”

“Well maybe. Time will tell. But let’s not get into that.”

Yes, a lot of the laughs are of the low-hanging fruit variety. But they’re on a higher plane than anything in the cumbersome “80 for Brady.” Two “love birds” are “love pterodactyls” at “our age” is par for the course.

“Moving On” is still more than funny enough to coast by, but demanding in ways that flatter and honor its seasoned cast, each of whom gets the best role she or he has had in years thanks to Weitz’s light comedy with a dark edge.

That one time I interviewed Jane Fonda? Right here.

Rating: R, for violence and profanity

Cast: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Malcolm McDowell and Richard Roundtree

Credits: Scripted and directed by Paul Weitz. A Roadside Attractions release.

Running time: 1:25

I like the idea of an Oscars that isn’t hurried. They were still “playing people off” at the 95th Academy Awards, and some needed it. But most did not.

Let people finish their thoughts. The laundry list speeches are still around, but come on. We come for the weeping and the narcissism.

They brought back all the categories. And gave Jimmy Kimmel the sort of indulgence and license they used to give Billy Crystal. A few laughs, more than a few cringes.

That was in keeping with Disney slapping its brand all over a telecast that didn’t feature Disney winners. I heard a rumor that non animated “Little Mermaid” is coming soon. You?

Tacky.

The Oscars ran long but so what? You go to bed and check out YouTube the next AM and see and hear what you missed. 3:42 is still short by Super Bowl standards.

The show made for some great television. Lady Gaga stripped down, emoting and belting and getting attention for not shocking, a Bollywood dance number, Salma and Antonio, winning pairings all up and down the line.

And tearful speeches from the sentimental favorites who won in almost every category.

Angela Bassett and Brendan Gleeson and Colin and Ms Deadwyler had better get Oscar worthy offerings in the near future. If there’s any justice in this annual popularity contest, they will.